Orca- Killer Whale (1977)

 

Whilst Orca may have been inspired by the success of Jaws and superficially appears similar (plus Orca was the name of that film’s iconic boat) it is something of a different beast. While the shark in Jaws was simply the creature from the wild that attacked people for no other reason than because that’s what sharks do, the killer whale in this movie is given a motivation. The viewer is encouraged to understand why it is acting as it does and rather than random attacks it's targets are shown to be considered to achieve a certain end. Whether a real killer whale has such cognisance is another thing but what the films writers want us to believe is that this is a personal battle.

 

MacArthur Park

 Some songs are instant classics and you know why. Others have something different about them, something that must have sounded distinctly odd when they were first aired. Yet one way or another they have become standards and `MacArthur Park` is one of those. On first listen it sounds like some surreal fantasy, perhaps evolving due to excessive access to certain substances- it was after all penned in the late Sixties. Of course it’s not and when you take a look it’s a song that makes perfect sense, cake, rain and all.